Alpine Wonder

This should be the place where every professional repairs at those inevitable times when golf becomes a bit of a chore – a stage reached by Nick Dougherty at the recent HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Dougherty, after he had amassed a nine at the water-laced 18th in his second round, came up with the rueful comment that he had had one of those days when a job stacking shelves in a supermarket seemed a not unattractive proposition.
Kitzbühel has what it takes to encourage a player to do as the late Walter Hagen once recommended. Namely to stop and smell the flowers along the way.
Golf in Austria dates back to 1901 when the Emperor Franz Josef became hooked on the game. He provided land at an annual rent of 1 Krone for a course at Wien-Krieau which was constructed by the French architect, M C Noskowski. This first course would become the home of the Golf Club of Vienna.
Edward, Prince of Wales, following his abdication, played regularly in the city, while another aficionado of the Austrian way of golf was the late Sir Henry Cotton. The latter used to boast less about his three Open championship victories than the fact that his wife, “Toots”, who was never lower than an eight-handicap, won the 1937 Austrian Women’s Championship. In those days, the event was more of a social affair than anything else but, as Cotton used to say, a national title is a national title.
Today, golf in Austria, no less than skiing, is a sport for the many rather than the few and one in which the number of golfers is proliferating all the time. Though there were fewer than 300 people playing in the late 1930s, there are now 68,000 plying their sport over 136 venues.
Though most will assume that these practitioners are all as fit as mountain goats and have to shoot up and down a series of slopes as dramatically elevated as a Phil Mickelson wedge, that is by no means always the case.
In Kitzbühel, Golf Eichenheim may be best played in a buggy but there is no question of golfers having to hit with the ball above or below their feet all the time. Schwarzsee, the other 18-hole layout in the little city, is another championship venue of the highest order having, in 2003, come in for a host of tributes when it hosted the Challenge Tour’s 2003 Kitzbuhel Golf Alpin Open. Larchenhof, a little further out of town, boasts a challenging course along with a first-class practice ground where the mountain backcloth seems to inspire even the most unlikely of candidates to get his or her shots nicely lofted.
Of the two nine-hole courses in the city, Rasmushof lies on the lower slopes of the Hahnenkammrennen and is correspondingly hilly. In golfing terms, though, the hills are merely the equivalent of skiing’s nursery slopes, the perfect place for beginners.
In contrast, Kitzbühel-Kaps, has only one severe ascent – up the sixth tee. It is a bit of an effort, though rather less of one if you are making the ascent on winged feet following a par or better at the fifth. The course, which is attached to the stunning A-Rosa resort, closes with two island greens. Aside from adding up to a delicious test for the golfer, they can make for plenty of entertainment for those sitting on the clubhouse veranda.